Recycle

The other day a friend and I got into a conversation about recycling.  I admitted I was a freak about throwing things away and Mike nodded in agreement.  She proceeded to tell me that she recycled everything.  We began to compare notes about what we did with all sorts of things we couldn’t throw away.  Cell phones, empty printer cartridges, milk lids, box tops, and soup labels get brought to school for fundraisers.  Any type of greeting card can be brought to the Senior Center where they will cut the photo portion out of the card and make a new card out of it.  Stamps that have been used can be brought to the Senior Center or the Lutheran Church in town because for each stamp some child somewhere will get a glass of milk.  Clothes get passed on to needy families or brought to the recycling center thrift shop in town.  They don’t accept shoes there, so she brings hers to Duluth and I send mine home with my sister who donates them to a local collection place.  Nike has a Reuse a Shoe Program where you can send in or drop off old pairs of tennis shoes and they use them to make playground surfaces.  You can even drop off old eyeglasses in the bank lobby!  There is a great website out there for people who live in populated areas called freecycle.org.  You can post items you have to give away or request specific items you need.  It’s amazing after you sort out plastic, glass, tin, paper, aluminum, and all of the other items how little garbage is really left.  We don’t have curbside pick up out here so the fewer 10 mile trips to and from our dumpster the better.